Quake

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT QUAKE - PAGE 5

TOKYO: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5 jolted eastern Japan including the capital, Tokyo, on Sunday, the NHK public broadcaster and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, and no tsunami warning was issued.

JAKARTA: A major 7.8-magnitude quake hit Indonesia's northern Sumatra early Wednesday, US seismologists said, triggering a tsunami alert in nearby Thailand but no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The quake struck at a depth of 46 kilometres (29 miles), just off northern Sumatra, at 5:15 am (2215 GMT Tuesday), according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Thailand warned people in coastal areas to evacuate to a safe place. The National Disaster Warning Centre there said there was a high risk of a tsunami on the Andaman Coast, which was battered by an Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 that killed an estimated 5,400 people in Thailand alone.

PASADENA: Take the world's most earthquake-prepared country, jolt it with one of the biggest quakes in history and add a devastating tsunami minutes later. In the classic battle of Man vs. Nature, Nature won again. Hundreds if not thousands of people are dead in Japan. One of the world's most technologically advanced and earthquake-prone nations is paralyzed by a 8.9-magnitude "megathrust. " It was the fifth-strongest quake in the world since 1900 and the most powerful on record ever to hit Japan, but not the deadliest.

WHITEHORSE: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.8 has been reported in Canada's northern Yukon Territory. The US Geological Survey says the temblor struck at 12:41 a.m. (0741 GMT, 3:41 a.m. EDT) Tuesday. Its depth was 12.5 miles (20.1 kilometer) and its epicenter was about 190 miles (310 kilometers) from Eagle, Alaska.

GANGTOK: With the recovery of a body from a multi-storey building here, the quake-related death toll in Sikkim rose to 93 today as rescuers slowly made their way to devastated villages in North District braving rains and landslides. Official sources said the body was found during the day by rescuers from the building which caved in during heavy rains on September 23 night after developing cracks due to the quake. With this the toll in East District has gone up to 14, while it remained same in rest of the state - 74 in North District, 1 in South District and 4 in West District.

CHRISTCHURCH: A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake caused widespread devastation in New Zealand's second largest city of Christchurch on Saturday, with officials saying it was "extremely lucky" no one was killed. The quake struck just before dawn when few people were on the streets sending building facades crashing to the ground, crushing parked cars and showering the roads with shattered glass. Frightened residents fled from their homes to find streets covered in rubble and glass, but in the city of 340,000 only two people were seriously injured.

TOKYO: Japan will double to 100,000 the number of troops on rescue and relief missions after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the northeast coast, the government said Sunday. Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa told a meeting of his ministry's emergency headquarters that he had received the order from Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a government official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Police said Sunday the death toll from the disaster was nearing 900. Along the hard-hit east coast of Honshu island, where the monster waves struck, more than 12,250 homes and other buildings were destroyed or damaged.

GENEVA: Some 90,000 jobs have been lost in Haiti following the devastation of January's earthquake, a UN agency said on Friday. "We are estimating about 90,000 jobs completely lost," said Alfredo Lazarte, the head of the International Labour Organisation's crisis team. He added that another 350,000 jobs have also been "severely affected", noting that many homes which also housed small businesses had been damaged, and that around a third of large factories in Haiti had been flattened.

NEW DELHI: A day after Japan was hit by giant tidal waves caused by a massive earthquake which has left 1600 people dead or unaccounted for there, India today said that information available so far indicates that all its nationals are safe. "...spoke with our Ambassador in Tokyo. All Indians safe acc (according) to presently available info. We have about 100 in Sendai," Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said here. Rao also tweeted that India has pledged to assist Japan and that country would decide if it needed help.

PORT-AU-PRINCE: More than 100,000 people were feared dead in Haiti Wednesday after a calamitous earthquake razed homes, hotels, and hospitals, leaving the capital in ruins and bodies strewn in the streets. Schools collapsed, trapping the dead inside, and the cries of desperate victims escaped from flattened buildings in the center of the capital Port-au-Prince, which an AFP correspondent said was "mostly destroyed. " A massive aid operation swung into action, with rescue teams set to fly in from across the globe to try to pull victims from the debris, bringing desperately-needed medicines and food, as a humanitarian crisis unfolded.